While the provided URL for the Bloomberg article titled "Niche Fund Goes All-In on Battered 0% Long Bonds as Yields Soar" did not yield its content, related news indicates that several prominent investment firms are making significant, contrarian plays on long-dated US Treasuries amidst a challenging bond market. Fisher Investments, managing approximately $336 billion in Q2 2026, is actively building positions in long-dated US Treasuries, even as 30-year yields have climbed past 5% for the first time since 2007. This move is particularly notable given the firm's historical equity-first focus, and it suggests a belief that the current yield environment is sentiment-driven rather than a reflection of deteriorating economic fundamentals.
Jupiter Asset Management's Mark Nash, a fixed income manager at the £74 billion ($100 billion) firm, also holds a similar contrarian view. He is betting on "curve-flattener trades," effectively predicting a decline in longer-dated bond yields. Nash believes that markets are overestimating sovereign debt risks and that long-dated bonds will rebound from their recent selloff, going against the prevailing market sentiment that heavy debt burdens will continue to drive government borrowing costs higher.
The broader context for these contrarian bets is a bond market that has seen its worst decade since the Great Depression. Bank of America data, using Bloomberg information, shows that 15-year-plus Treasuries posted roughly -2% annualized returns over 10 years, the second period since 1936 with negative 10-year annualized returns. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) dropped over 26% from its early-2020 peak. However, it is precisely these losses and the resulting higher starting yields that some investors, like Fisher Investments, see as a generational buying opportunity. The 10-year US Treasury yield recently rose to 5.02%, its highest level since 2007, driven by surging energy prices, mounting debt, and inflation. This makes the income component of long bonds genuinely attractive, with a 5% coupon on a US government obligation for three decades being a yield not seen for an extended period.
